3D Printing of Solar Cell Contacts with Metal Reactive Inks

使用金属活性墨水 3D 打印太阳能电池触点

• 批准号: 1635548
• 负责人: Owen Hildreth
• 金额: $ 29.88万
• 依托单位: Arizona State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-01 至 2019-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1635548&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: 3D; Printing; Solar; Cell; Contacts

Current solar cell contacts are made by screen-printing silver pastes and then sintering the silver particles together at high temperatures to form a conductive electrode. However, the high-temperature sintering step is costly and is not compatible with thin-film solar cell technologies. One solution is to use low-temperature reactive inks. Reactive inks print chemicals (instead of printing particles) that react at low temperatures, and can potentially produce dense materials with good electrical conductivity. Unfortunately, non-optimized reactive inks tend to produce high porosity in printed materials. This award supports fundamental research to enable development of new silver and copper reactive inks that can print conductive materials with very low porosity. These new inks can have applications in photovoltaics and low-cost flexible electronics.The first research objective is to understand the effect of ink composition (including ligand type, reactant concentration, and solvent) on the chemical and fluid properties of reactive inks. Relevant ink properties under investigation include reaction activation energy, Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, heat-of-vaporization, diffusion coefficient, viscosity, and surface tension. This objective will be achieved by experimentally measuring relevant properties as ligand type (examples: [(NH3)2CH3CO2]-, [(NH3)2NO3]-, and 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol), reactant concentration (10 µmol/L to 1 mol/L), and solvent type (ethanol, water, glycerol, and 2,3-butandiol) are varied. Activation energy, Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, and heat of vaporization will be measured using a differential scanning calorimeter and a thermogravimetric analyzer; diffusion coefficient will be measured using chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry; viscosity will be measured using a microVISC rheometer; and surface tension will be measured using a custom goniometer. The second research objective is to understand the effect of ink composition and processing parameters on chemical potential distribution in evaporating reactive ink droplets. To achieve this objective, simulations will be conducted using Comsol Multiphysics equipped with heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, chemical reaction engineering, and particle tracing modules. These simulations will predict the chemical potential distribution in evaporating reactive ink droplets as ink composition and processing parameters are varied. The third research objective is to understand the effect of reaction kinetics on particle nucleation and growth rate distributions in evaporating reactive ink droplets. To achieve this objective, particle nucleation and growth rate distributions will be modeled using the classical nucleation theory with activation energies taken from the literature. The reaction kinetics will be calculated using the measured reaction activation energy, the measured Arrhenius pre-exponential factor, and the simulated chemical potential distribution. Some predicted results will be compared with experimental observations.

目前的太阳能电池触点是通过丝网印刷银浆，然后在高温下将银颗粒烧结在一起形成导电电极，然而，高温烧结步骤成本高昂，并且与薄膜太阳能电池技术不兼容。一种解决方案是使用低温活性墨水打印在低温下发生反应的化学品（而不是打印颗粒），并且可能会产生具有良好导电性的致密材料。在印刷材料中产生高孔隙率。该奖项支持开发新型银和铜反应性墨水，这些墨水可以在光伏和低成本柔性电子产品中得到应用。目的是了解油墨成分（包括配体类型、反应物浓度和溶剂）对反应性油墨的化学和流体特性的影响。正在研究的相关油墨特性包括反应活化能、阿伦尼乌斯指前因子、该目标将通过实验测量配体类型的相关属性（例如：[(NH3)2CH3CO2]-、[(NH3)2NO3]- 和 2- 来实现。氨基-2-甲基-1-丙醇）、反应物浓度（10 µmol/L 至 1 mol/L）和溶剂类型（乙醇、水、甘油和使用差示扫描量热仪和热重分析仪测量活化能、阿伦尼乌斯指前因子和汽化热；使用计时电流法和循环伏安法测量扩散系数；使用 microVISC 流变仪；并使用定制测角仪测量表面张力第二个研究目标是了解油墨成分和加工参数的影响。为了实现这一目标，我们将使用配备传热、计算流体动力学、化学反应工程和粒子追踪模块的 Comsol Multiphysics 进行模拟，这些模拟将预测蒸发过程中的化学势分布。第三个研究目标是了解反应动力学对蒸发活性墨滴的颗粒成核和生长速率分布的影响。为了实现目标，粒子成核和生长速率分布将使用经典成核理论和来自文献的活化能进行建模，反应动力学将使用测量的反应活化能、测量的阿伦尼乌斯指前因子和模拟的化学势进行计算。一些预测结果将与实验观察结果进行比较。

项目成果

Low-Temperature Drop-on-Demand Reactive Silver Inks for Solar Cell Front-Grid Metallization

用于太阳能电池前栅金属化的低温按需滴反应活性银油墨

• DOI: 10.1109/jphotov.2016.2621351
• 发表时间: 2017-01
• 期刊: IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
• 影响因子: 3
• 作者: Jeffries, April M.;Mamidanna, Avinash;Ding, Laura;Hildreth, Owen J.;Bertoni, Mariana I.
• 通讯作者: Bertoni, Mariana I.

A percolative approach to investigate electromigration failure in printed Ag structures

研究印刷银结构电迁移失效的渗透方法

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4963755
• 发表时间: 2016-09-29
• 期刊: Journal of Applied Physics
• 影响因子: 3.2
• 作者: Zhao Zhao;Avinash Mamidanna;Christopher S. Lefky;O. Hildreth;T. Alford
• 通讯作者: T. Alford

Drop-on-demand printed microfluidics device with sensing electrodes using silver and PDMS reactive inks

具有使用银和 PDMS 反应墨水的传感电极的按需印刷微流体装置

• DOI: 10.1007/s10404-017-2010-8
• 发表时间: 2017-10-31
• 期刊: Microfluidics and Nanofluidics
• 影响因子: 2.8
• 作者: Avinash Mamidanna;Christopher S. Lefky;O. Hildreth
• 通讯作者: O. Hildreth